Dear World & Everyone In It

New Poetry in the UK: Bloodaxe, publication date Thursday 21st February

As a new poetry anthology appears from Bloodaxe it is time to reassess the world of anthologies. Let me mince no words over this matter: ‘I think that Nathan Hamilton’s new collection/selection/anthology of poems is both exciting and long overdue.’

‘The Anthology is polyphonic. The Anthology is a collage of different, or opposing, voices, some enhanced by The Anthology, others working with or against The Anthology. The Anthology does not await the anointment of a Great Poet of The Age to speak for it. The Anthology believes this is an old way of thinking critically in the UK informed by the nation’s attachment to monarchic ideology / Ted Hughes. The Anthology will have none of that Spam.’

It is highly pleasing to recognise so many of the names contained in The Anthology as having been published in Tears in the Fence: Siddartha Bose, Hannah Silva, Tom Chivers, James Wilkes, Sarah Kelly, Chris McCabe, Luke Kennard.

‘The Anthology is described as containing work from young poets in the UK. The Anthology includes work from poets born, or stationed, overseas. The Anthology challenges a notion of UK poetry as parochial. The Anthology represents what and who young poets in the UK are reading as well as what they are writing.’